You didn’t really think I was going to stop blogging on this topic did you?

And much to my surprise, my “scribbles” concerning my frustration with folks’ lack of involvement with things like local elections, democracy and poverty seemed to “confuse” a lot of people.

Stubborn and willful blogger that I am, I did another “scribble” on how the Massachusetts Health Care Reform is NOT exactly helping the Massachusetts “Middle Class” or small businesses.

I was talking to yet another small business last week. They felt it was necessary for their economic survival, for the business to go to a health insurance plan with a $2,000 deductible (that is probably a $4,000 deductible per family at least), hoping that none of their employees got too sick.

Yes, I’m getting the vapors all over again.

This is from an Opinion piece in the Boston Globe, September 17, 2007 “Health reform failure” by Steffie Woolhandler and David U. Himmelstein.

“…But this time, most of the uninsured are neither poor nor elderly…”

“The middle class is being priced out of healthcare. Virtually all of this year’s increase was among families with incomes above $50,000; in fact, two-thirds of the newly uncovered were in the above-$75,000 group. And full-time workers accounted for 56 percent of the increase, with their children making up much of the rest….”

“Why has progress been so meager? Because most of the promised new coverage is of the “buy it yourself” variety, with scant help offered to the struggling middle class.”

“And 244,000 of Massachusetts uninsured get zero assistance – just a stiff fine if they don’t buy coverage. A couple in their late 50s faces a minimum premium of $8,638 annually, for a policy with no drug coverage at all and a $2,000 deductible per person before insurance even kicks in. Such skimpy yet costly coverage is, in many cases, worse than no coverage at all. Illness will still bring crippling medical bills – but the $8,638 annual premium will empty their bank accounts even before the bills start arriving. Little wonder that barely 2 percent of those required to buy such coverage have thus far signed up…” (Boston Globe, September 17, 2007).

Mary Eaton
Newburyport

Let me whine a little bit more about how this new Massachusetts Health Care Reform Act may not exactly be nifty.

If you are working hard and making a certain amount of money, but what you are making is not all not all that much–No help for you buddy.

And if you have a small business, and have contributed to the economy in Massachusetts all these years (like so many of the people I have talked to have), make an “Ok” living, but aren’t exactly getting rich, what you now get to shell out for health insurance for your small business seems to give every small business person that I talked to the “vapors.”

Even the response I got talking with small businesses that are doing pretty well, is that the monthly health insurance bill is the most dreaded bill of the month.

The rational behind the huge jumps that insurance takes for the self-employed and small businesses for folks at ages 50, 55 and 60, to reference the article in the Boston Globe article, August 17, 2007, by Alice Dembner, “Older residents feel insurance law pinch, Age-based prices too high for some,” (Please press here to read the article) is the assumption that as people get older, they are at the peak of their earning power and can afford huge premiums. But, as the article points out, that is not exactly always the case.

And obsessive researcher that I might be, I’ve been taking a look at some of the “new” plans that health insurance companies are offering in response to the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Act.

This is an example of a PPO. There is a $3,000-$6,000 deductible “In Network,” “$6,000-$9,000” deductible “Out of Network,” and an annual out of pocket maximum per family, “Out of Network”– $18,000 (“In Network would only be $10,000). That does not include the monthly payment that whoever has this plan, pays on top of it.

It’s more complicated than that, but you get the idea, this is an astronomical amount of money for any individual or family to pay.

And this is going to go up every year.

Have the “vapors” yet?

The health insurance companies are responding to the new Massachusetts Health Care Reform Act. What they have been forced to do by this new act is push families to either come up with the money somehow if they are ill, or skip getting health care all together. (Sound familiar… only this time it’s the self-employed, small business Middle Class.)

Guess what families are going to do if they happen to have the plan above or one similar to it? They are NOT going to go to the doctor when they are afraid something is wrong. Because they get to pay 20%-40% of the doctor’s bill, lab bill, any thing that the health insurance company does NOT consider “Preventive Care,” i.e. any diagnosis or illness.

So it is my “scream” (see earlier entry), that the Massachusetts whatever (legislature, governor, state representatives) go way, way back to the drawing board, because on all kinds of levels, as far as I’m concerned, this new law is one sick joke. (And should never, ever be used in any way shape or form for a national model of what to do about the health insurance crisis in the United States of America.)

Mary Eaton
Newburyport